


Dance With me

by GrapeJellyfish



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Concerts, Dancing, Drinking, M/M, Party, Smooching, dorks being dorky, marco doing his marco thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:46:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1197183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrapeJellyfish/pseuds/GrapeJellyfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lazy, carefree days of High School are ending for Marco, come September he will be in college.<br/>No more familiar hallways, no more familiar faces,<br/>and more importantly,<br/>no more Jean.<br/>In one last ditch attempt to spend some quality time with his best friend, the two take a road trip out to the deep rockies for a concert.<br/>Will Marco finally be able to tell the other how he feels?<br/>Or will he whisk away on the breath of what could have been?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance With me

**Author's Note:**

> I should be working on Angel.  
> But here I am posting more oneshots...

Music blared through the speakers as a mass of sweaty dancers swayed and pulsed to the overwhelming bass. The dusk air was thick with artificial fog, laser lights shining at an epileptic frequency, their beams caught in the smoke above the mass’ heads. Music thrummed through the speakers, making my head vibrate. 

It felt like my brain was melting. 

The hot sweaty crowd around me wasn’t helping either. 

As I was jostled among the crowd, I kept a weary eye out for a familiar shock of bleached blonde hair. He was here, somewhere, I knew that much. 

I flinched back as a dancer’s elbow jutted forward sharply, barely glancing my temple before withdrawing at an alarmingly quick pace, it was too late to find it’s owner, as i felt my body shoved forward into a new press of people. There were so many limbs, I felt like I was drowning. The air was thick and heavy as I pressed forward, eager just to find some space to breathe without fearing for my life. Concerts were terrifying.

Peeling myself away from the crowd, having finally found a narrow opening in the throng of bodies, I stumbled breathlessly into the open air. Glancing backwards, the group had grown larger already. Everybody was pressing forward, screaming and singing, sweaty bodies crushed against one another eager to get closer to the stage several yards away. 

Taking a deep, shaky, breath, I straightened up, relieved to be away from the pulsating aura that was Squamish Live. Letting the cool evening air breeze across my face I heaved a relieved sigh. 

I found it funny just how abruptly different the atmosphere was merely steps away from the open air concert behind me. Even with the band’s music, still blaring from the speakers nearby, it felt more at ease… chill, was probably the best word to describe it. 

There were couples camped out sporadically throughout the clearing, sitting on blankets and in deck chairs. Some were cuddling, others were drinking, singing and swaying enthusiastically with one another, partying in their own private mosh. A few groups of music enthusiasts were milling about in scattered masses, probably completely stoned, or at least partially. I could hear the dramatic lilts and wails of their voices, lamenting lividly about how mainstream the festival had become over the past few years. 

Smiling to myself, I tucked my hands into the pockets if my sweater and set off into the rapidly darkening evening air. 

I walked, head up, focusing on the sunset before me. If there was anything to gain from coming to this festival, it would be this. Streaks of violet and crimson littered the horizon over tall pointed evergreens. The expanse was surrounded by mountains, creating stark, jutting silhouettes of bold rock face amongst the reaching stretch of painted sky. The lush grass beneath my sneakers was thick and soft, tamped lightly by the concert’s foot traffic over the past days.

Another light breeze played with a loose strand of dark brown hair at my temple as I meandered forward, attention split between navigation and slack jawed awe. Summer had been kind this year. It was mid August already, and the weather had taken a pleasant lull of melancholy warmth, the kind you only dream about in summer camp movies and charming chick flicks filled with muscular dudes and lakeside cabins. 

I could hear crickets in the tall grass, their shrill calls effortlessly floating over the bass still lingering from speakers far away. Fireflies began dotting the path before me as I walked, noticing, with muted fascination, that the blinking subtly resembled the overwhelming strobe lights mere meters away. 

It had been an impulse buy, my ticket to this festival. One, I’m ashamed to admit, that was more of less bought solely for the purpose of spending some quality time with a close friend of mine. Jean Kirschtein. It’s not that I didn’t like the assortment of bands on the playlist, or the music festival scene, or any of that stuff. I was just more focused on the way his jaw was doing _that thing_ as I ‘hmmed’ and ‘haawed’ an answer when he approached me. Or the way his usually furrowed brow softened into an excited beam when I told him yes, because I told him yes. Or the way his amber eyes met mine as he prattled on about what to bring and how we’d get there, and how stoked he was that I was coming. Honestly, i could have been doing a lot more productive things with my weekend, like finishing my prep for college, or picking up some extra shifts at work, so that i could afford to go to college. But when Jean Kirschtein asks me to go on a secluded mountain road trip with him _just the two of us_ , for an entirety of one week, I had a hard time saying no. 

It’s not like I was in love with the guy. In lust, is, i think, the better way of reasoning it. Jean and I had been friends for years. We practically grew up together, sharing our first awkward school dances, ugly first breakouts of flaming red acne, dramatic breakups, you name it, we did it together. All of it. That is, until about my 10th grade of high school. 

Somewhere along the line I got taller, Jean got hotter. Being a grade ahead of the guy didn’t help either. It’s not like we spent much time together in school anyways, we had always maintained a comfortable, platonic, acquaintance-level friendship during class hours. Unfortunately, his sudden increase in popularity due, i would assume, to his unexpected rise in hotness levels, meant that even the time we had outside of boring classes and mandatory extracurriculars was shortened to a brief window of time, somewhere between 6 and 9:30, Mondays and Wednesday, and sometimes Sundays. 

At first it was a bit of a blow, I mean, sure, I had a life outside of our friendship as well. Friends in my own grade, people from clubs outside of regular classes. But our time together had always been a given, at least that’s what I assumed. I was wrong, of course.

It’s not like I’m all that butt hurt about it. Jean can spend his time however he pleases, just as I can mine. It’s just that, somewhere between Jean getting hot, and me getting, well, more self-aware, I realized that platonic-school-hours-acquaintance-level-friendship wasn’t all I wanted from the guy.

That realization had been hard to deal with. 

I think it was between Jean’s messy breakup with a girl in his French class, and his awkward pining over that new Japanese exchange student- (what was it, Su casa? Something Spanish like that) that he swears is true love, that I realized I had feelings for the guy.

Unfortunately, so did half the school. 

I don’t know how it happened, but he seemed to have built himself a rather staggering fan base of admirers. The funny thing was, that he flew through them almost faster than they could replenish themselves. Jean’s abrasive personality had never done him any favours, and it wasn’t about to start now. 

Regardless, I had decided long ago, to just suck up my feelings for the guy and move on. We were friends, that was enough. It’s not like I pine after him or anything. I’ve managed to bridge a rather impressive gap of indifference regarding the subject, given my situation. Its just that, sometimes, when he smiles at me, or brushes his fingers across my arm to get my attention, I forget that, that gap is there. 

 

So now I’m here. Walking through the, admittedly, beautiful, Rocky Mountains at 11:00 in the evening, alone and fine with it. 

Sure, it would be nice to have him walking beside me. Knowing the first thing on his mind in situations like this would be where I was, or why I was leaving the performance early. It would be really nice to hold his hand, or even for our fingers to brush, intertwining as we wound our way down the steadily darkening path. Our passage lit by tiny fairy lights strung high above. Bobbles hung on looming pines that stood as silent guardians in this opulent sleepy mountain hideaway. All of that would be nice, just like how ice cream in the middle of winter would be nice, just like lighting a campfire inside of a minivan. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It _would_ be nice. It _wouldn’t_ be happening.

As I neared a bend in the overgrown pathway, I passed a group of campers, set up in a ramshackle trailer, old tents pinned to the side of the corrugated aluminum, creating an almost gazebo-like shelter. They had a fire going, laughing and talking, their voices carrying, jovial and carefree into the starry mountain sky.

One girl with dark hair, pushed back into a low ponytail, was dramatically retelling a story. Leaning over the rest of the group, beer bottle in hand, as she went through the overzealous motions of lighting a coffee filter on fire. The people around her shrieked enthusiastically as she threw a bunch of loose leaves into the fire, popping and fizzling for a brief moment before the flame stammered back to it’s usual steady flicker. 

It looked fun. 

They looked fun.

I noted with brief trepidation, that a blonde in the group was watching me, her large blue eyes had, at some point, strayed from her nattering friend, focusing on my form, half shadowed by the trees that hung low over my head. 

Casting me a friendly smile, she held up and beer and shouted over the little clearing. “Do you want to join us?”

I froze. I wasn’t expecting her to actually acknowledge me. 

The entire group had stopped now, following the small girl’s gaze to mine. They had fallen silent, a momentary lull drifting between myself and the group only metres away. 

I gulped down any lingering doubt and took a breath. I was in the middle of nowhere, why the heck not? 

“Sure.”

The blonde smiled and nodded as the rest of the group returned to their shenanigans. 

Making my way across the grass in a few long strides, I drew up to her, looking down with a hesitant smile. “I’m not interrupting something, am I?”  
The blonde only returned the smile with one of her own and shifted far enough over to give me some space. “Of course not!” 

At that, she placed a bottle in my hand, my fingers closing around it almost reflexively.

“Okay…” I answered tentatively, an air of uncertainty hanging between my silences.

She let out a little laugh and stuck out a hand. “I’m Krista. You seemed lonely so I invited you over.”  
“Marco.” I replied, taking her small and in mine and gently giving it a squeeze. 

“These festivals are always a little overwhelming. I find it easier when you have a group of people to share it with.” Her voice was light and melodic, bright blue eyes focused on the crackling fire as she spoke. 

“Yeah, probably.” I smiled, feeling considerably at ease given my situation. There was something just really welcoming about her. “I’ve never been to one of these before, so I didn’t really know what to expect.” I took a drink from the bottle and winced. Beer was never a favourite of mine.  
She, Krista, smiled at that, and nodded understandably. “I’ve only been to a few so far. They’re not really something I do, but Ymir,” she motioned to the enthusiastic brunette from earlier “likes to come, and I really don’t mind.” 

My eyes trailed between the two as something slowly clicked in the back of my mind- oh-.

“Well it’s good to know I’m not the only one, I guess.” I turned to watch the fire, it’s flames licking at the inky black backdrop of forest. “A friend of mine asked me to come, so,” I shrugged and little and laughed “here I am… I guess.” 

Turning her eyes to me, the little blonde nodded in understanding. “It’s a lot, isn’t it?”

Another laugh. 

“Definitely. 

And suddenly we were talking. 

Words came easily and conversation flowed like the beer they kept shoving in my hesitant hands.

I’d be hard pressed to say that this was the most fun I had, had, all summer.

Sitting under the starlight sky, heavy flames popping in my ears, the sounds of laughter mingling with far off noises from a rowdy crowd of enthusiastic music lovers, I was finally relaxing. The group around me had transitioned into a rather tame game of trying to name old campfire songs. Each person taking turns to hum a tune as everybody else tried to remember the lyrics. 

It was fun. 

It was easy. 

It reminded me of those aforementioned summer camp movies and charming chick flicks, and those muscular dudes with lakeside cabins.

After a few of Ymir’s stories and a couple more beers, I would actually admit that I was genuinely enjoying myself. 

Making friends had never been hard for me. I just never expected to connect on any level with the concert going crowd. 

The high spirited guy on my left, who I soon learned was named Connie, was hilariously entertaining, he and another girl (Sasha) played off of each other in a ridiculously comical way that left the entire group in stitches every time they opened their mouths. 

Ymir was overwhelming with her intense involvement in each conversation, often leading to a heated debate between her and another large blonde guy named Reiner. 

All in all, the group I had discovered felt more and more like a collection of close friends as the night drew on. 

Maybe it was the spell of clean, unblemished mountain air, or maybe it was just the booze, I had drank a lot by this point.

 

Doubling over in a fit of laughter, I leaned heavily against Krista, who was bending over her knees, shoulders violently shaking as Connie and Sasha continued a dramatic retelling of their finals examinations that year. Connie was reciting a tragic poem leaping over his deck chair and bouncing on the balls of his feet with each landing, as Sasha wildly threw tufts of grass and dirt at him, shrieking unintelligibly from where she hid, behind Reiner’s broad frame. 

I recalled, with some misgiving, that my finals hadn’t been half as interesting.

Just as Connie fell to the ground, pulling his knees to his chest and egg-rolling towards Sasha, a familiar voice broke my attention.

“Marco?”

Silhouetted at the edge of the path, where I was been hours earlier, a familiar two-tone haired figure stood, sweaty, breathing hard, and looking utterly confused. 

I sat up straight, a smile breaking over my face as I took in the sight of my best friend.

“Jean! Hey!” 

Jean balked, taking a slow step forward before cautiously approaching us. “I was wondering where the hell you went.” He murmured, drawing up close and sitting down roughly beside me, causing me to inch over a little to make room.

He was close, really close…

“Yeah, sorry.” I laughed, feeling warm and at ease from the shitty beer I had been drinking all night. “I left the main area a while ago. Too many people. We kind of got separated… you know.”

He pulled a face, and grabbed the half empty bottle I had been holding from my hand. Taking a rough swig, he scowled and looked at the unlabelled glass. 

“I noticed.” He took another swig.

Was he angry?”

“Did you leave just now?” I felt myself lean forward, into the warmth of the fire, it’s glow lighting up my face in dull orange hues. The now familiar sounds of the group around me seemed comforting in the tranquil darkness. 

Jean hummed lightly and shrugged. “Sorta.”

He was really close.

“Well I’m glad you had fun.” Turning my head to see his hunched figure, I smiled warmly. 

Jean was dressed in a ripped t-shirt, I’m pretty sure used to be mine. He had slaughtered it one summer in the dastardly heat of July, insisting that it would look better like this anyways. We took turns wearing it, as girly as that sounds. Really, it was only because Jean kept stealing it, claiming it looked better on him and I should just borrow one of his. I don’t really know why he was so attached to that shitty t-shirt, but at some point i just stopped taking it back, replacing it with one of his own that I may or may not have packed away at the bottom of my rucksack. 

His hair was messy, meaning messier than usual, sticking up wildly in some spots and falling flat in others. I don’t know how, but he pulled it off, but it looked hot, regardless. Not that I would ever tell him that.

He was wearing loose denim jeans, slung low on his hips, their light wash standing out in the dim firelight of the evening. 

Everything was bathed in that light, making the grass around us look soft and wistful.

Jean was pouting, it took me a moment to pick it up, probably because of the alcohol now flowing freely through my system, but I got there.

“What’s up?” I frowned, propping my head up on my palm, leaning heavily on my knees. The benches were too short for me, most things were. For some reason I had been cursed with the inconvenience of hanging unconventionally long legs. As a result, everything was too short for me, everything. 

Jean shrugged again, shoulders dropping heavily and he downed the rest of my beer in one go, grabbing another fluidly as he deposited the empty bottle in the grass at our feet.

“Welcome to the party brother.” Came a sarcastic reply from Connie, who had finally tied up any remaining antics from his and Sasha’s grand performance. 

“He’s your friend?” Krista questioned quietly to my right, voice floating up in an effortless lilt.

I nodded, smiling at her in response. 

She hummed thoughtfully and leaned around me. “Nice to meet you. I’m Krista.” 

Jean blinked a few times, looking somewhat taken aback by the tiny blonde’s brash introduction before stuttering out one of his own.

“Uh, hey, Jean…”

“Jean, is that french?” Came Ymir’s voice, she had placed herself on Krista’s other side and was easily swigging down beer between words.

“Yeah…” Came Jean’s hesitant reply.

“Do you know any French dude?” Connie was leaning on his chair now, balancing on the back legs and wobbling dangerously every couple seconds.

“A little.”

“Cool. Teach me a swear!” 

Jean laughed a little at that, relaxing considerably, the tension in his posture ebbing away slowly. 

I couldn’t stop watching him.

Connie rattled off a list of words and phrases he wanted translated, and Jean obliged, grinning mischievously when he came to an embarrassingly dirty sentence. As he was speaking, rolling over the foreign syllables with ease, our eyes met, it was so fast I almost missed it, the amber in his gaze flicking back to Connie in an instant. 

I could have been imagining things…

I probably was. 

After I few more hours of scattered conversation, the topics slowly degrading into primary school level diction, I felt the group wrapping up. 

Krista had been dozing on Ymir’s arm for a little over fifteen minutes while the brunette played with the wispy strands of her hair, pulling soft sighs from the small blonde as her lithe fingers gently massaged her scalp. 

“You two got a place to crash?” Reiner was standing up, watching Jean and I curiously as he hefted an impressively tall quiet guy to his feet. I speculated, with mild interest, how this was the first time I had noticed him. 

“Yeah, we set up a tent a few sites away.” I smiled, getting to my feet also and almost keeling over. Apparently I had drank more than I thought.

“Woah there.” A voice spoke close to my ear.

Jean’s arm came up to steady me as he stepped by my side, arm sliding around my waist to stop my apparent swaying. 

I giggled. “Oops.”

Reiner just smiled and nodded. “Come meet us tomorrow, we’ve got stuff for pancakes.” He gestured with a thumb towards the camping stove they had set up near the back.

I just smiled and nodded.

Jean did the same, adding a soft “Yeah.” 

He still hadn’t let go. But that my have been because I was about ready to fall on the ground at any second. Tipsy may be putting it lightly.

“Come on, time for bed you nerd.” Jean mumbled, his arm slipping from my waist as he tugged me back to the wooded pathway.

I let out an unhappy whine and followed him obediently, sad to no longer have his body so close to mine.

As we meandered through the overgrown pathway, I noted dully that music was still playing somewhere far in the distance. “They’re still going.” I muttered thoughtfully, feet leading me of my own hazy volition.

“Yeah.” Came his short reply.

“You danced for a long time.” 

Jean stopped at that, grip loosening around my wrist as he let out a heavy sigh. 

“Not really.”  
I cocked my head to the side, watching his back, the way his shoulder blades moved under his shirt as he shifted on the soft earth. “What do you mean?”  
Jean let out a short laugh, his tone almost disconcerting as he rand a hand through his hair, messing it up even further. He turned to face me. Amber eyes still impossibly stark in the poorly lit gloom. “I spent most of my time looking for your lost ass, Marco.”  

The way he said my name was different, his tone shifted, softer than the words before it. 

His eyes hadn’t left mine. 

I felt a tightening in my chest, anticipating something I knew was impossible. If Jean was going to kiss me, he would have done it a long time ago.

“Why?” My voice came out a lot breathier than I intended, sounding like a dry whisper. I couldn’t breathe. At least not well.

Jean licked his lips,  and pressed them into a thin line, not that I was staring at his lips or anything, I just noticed…

His demeanour shifted. Sighing, he ran a hand loosely through his hair again, leaning against a thick tree on his left, his frame practically melting into it’s rough exterior. “I had this whole thing planned, and you had to go and fuck it up.” He was smiling slightly, a disappointed fondness lingering in his tone. He was staring ahead at the little lights above our heads. They were soft, casting dim light on the underbrush at our feet, not enough to make out the scattering of Pine and Douglas Fir, but just enough to guide the way.

I frowned, biting loosely on my bottom lip, a bad habit from years ago. “I don’t really know what you mean…” 

Jean just laughed, the sound coming out more like a rough heave than his usual gruff scoff. 

He ran a hand through his hair again, it was a nervous habit of his, one I was just now picking up. 

“Jean, what?” I took a step forward, drawing up beside him, all effects of the alcohol from earlier having dulled down to a light buzz in the back of my brain. If Jean needed me here, I was going to be here. 

Casting his eyes downwards, I heard a faint mutter, something mumbled incoherently. 

Something about dancing.

“You’re gonna have to speak up if you want me to understand a word of that you know?” I nudged lightly, smiling fondly at the way he was staring at his unlaced converse. 

“Never mind.” He straightened up again, reverting back into normal Jean, cool, confident, Jean. Jean with swag. “It was a stupid idea anyways, come on.”  
And with that he was walking again, trodding down the path in his usual presumptuous manner. 

Whatever was bothering him wasn’t something he wanted to share with me, and that was annoying. 

“Jean, seriously man, wait up.” I paced quickly, closing the gap between us in a few even steps. Grabbing his arm and turning him around easily by the elbow. 

Suddenly Jean was kissing me, I was being pushed up against a fir tree and Jean was kissing me. 

My mind flickered through a rapid sequence of surprise, denial, reluctance, relief, and then- nothing. 

Almost reflexively, I pushed my lips against his, deepening the kiss. 

His arms wound around my waist, and he leaned further, my head bumping lightly against the rough bark of the tree at my back. 

Tangling my fingers in his hair, i pushed my tongue past his lips, tilting my head to make things easier as he did the same. 

We were kissing.

We were moving together.

It was like somebody had turned my senses onto High Definition, everything was sharp, clear, and focused, his tongue in my mouth, his lips on mine, my hands in his hair. 

But at the same time, everything was muffled, the booming music in the distance, the sounds of campers somewhere nearby. 

It was only us, and maybe this tree. 

Desperately gasping against each other, hungrily pressing together, wanting more, wanting to somehow get closer. 

After what felt like an both an eternity and half a second, we pulled apart, both breathless. Me, still leaning on this tree, hands in his messy strands of peroxide blonde. Jean’s arms, still wrapped around my waist.

A loud exhale was about all that came out of him, Jean’s amber eyes bleeding into my own vision. 

Then he punched me, not hard, but he punched me in the gut.

I let out a light ‘Oof' and flinched away, movement impeded by the flaky bark at my back.

“I wanted to dance with you, you nerd.” Jean was scowling now, under an incredible blush that just made him look adorable. 

My eyes widened in understanding, ‘T _hat’s why he had been so upset’,_ and I let out a quiet “Oh-“

“sorry… I didn’t think…”

“You’re leaving next month.” He interrupted, eyes still focused on my own, His gaze was intense. 

With him looking at me like that“Yeah.” Was about the most coherent I could get at the moment.

“I just figured it was better to do this now then-“ He closed his mouth, dropping his gaze to the small expanse of ground between us. “I’m gonna miss you.”

My heart stuttered and I felt a warm tingling sensation grow in my stomach. An enormous smile broke over my face and I pulled him into another kiss. 

A small, surprised whine escaped him before his was kissing me back again.

Pulling away and peppering smaller kisses down his cheek and neck I paused at his ear planting a kiss on the shell of his earlobe. “I’ll miss you too Jean.” 

I hugged him close, nuzzling my face into his shoulder in what probably was a death grip. 

I didn’t care.

Jean’s arms wrapped around me again and he laughed, high and breathy. 

“You know… it’s still not too late for that dance…”

**Author's Note:**

> This was incredibly fun to write. I hope you guys enjoyed it! 
> 
> [You can find me on Tumblr here if you want to talk to my dorky self](http://jellyfish.tumblr.com/)  
> I love all you beautiful poops thanks for taking the time to read this!


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